COJA hits out hard at judge's appointment procedure

NEW DELHI: With the government rejecting elevation of two judges to Supreme Court within a fortnight, eminent jurists on Friday slammed the appointment procedure saying the Supreme Court Collegium’s recommendations have been made without transparency or proper verification.

After returning the file recommending elevation of Karnataka chief justice P D Dinakaran to the apex court, the law ministry is understood to have rejected the proposal to promote Allahabad High Court chief justice Chandramauli Kumar Prasad. Both the recommendations were made by the Supreme Court Collegium.

“We are disturbed that recommendations have been made without any transparency and without proper verification of the antecedents & reputation of those recommended,” a statement issued by the Committee on Judicial Accountability (COJA) said.

The statement was signed by senior jurists including Ram Jethmalani, Shanti Bhushan, Fali Nariman, Anil Divan, Kamini Jaiswal and Prashant Bhushan. “The committee strongly feels that responsible members of the bar of the concerned High Courts should be consulted before the colle-gium makes any recommendation to the government,” it said.

It also said that till a full time National Judicial Appointments Commission is in place, the Supreme Court Collegium should “fashion after public debate, an open, accountable and participatory procedure for making recommendations for judicial appointments.” Further, it suggested not recommending persons for appointment until the names are made public, and members of the bar and public are enabled to share the relevant information that they might have about the proposed appointees with the collegium.

The statement also said that in Di-nakaran’s case, some of the allegations against him have been subse-quently been confirmed by the District Magistrate, leading to an impeachment motion against him which has been admitted by the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha.